User blog comment:Biggren/The Mice of Wintor/@comment-2246928-20170525142342/@comment-2246928-20180611174214

An arrow sped past Hivra's ear, and in the distance at the treeline the villagers were fleeing to, several more figures appeared, adding their own arrows to the lone archer. Some of the swifter villagers had already long since made it past their rescuers, and as the sunlight caught their long ears and tall, lean statures, the stoat finally saw them, and their long ears. Uniformed rabbits. Another arrow, and Hivra threw herself to the ground to avoid it, hearing the deadly missile zip over her.

"Hm?" There was a tapping on her shoulder, and she turned quizzically, to find herself staring into the eyes of a small, tubby mouse, lying on his belly next to her. He held out a letter to her. "From King Seergaz."

Hivra took it and set her sword down, reading the letter as the sunlight shimmered off her resting blade. The letter bore a simple five-word command: "Retreat and report back immediately."

Letting the letter flutter from her grasp, she thrust her paw out and snagged the big rat's foot just as he raced past her. "Shafka!" She hissed, getting dragged along on her stomach behind her bulk of a companion for a moment before he realized he was being held onto and looked down. "What?" he said, ducking another arrow as he stared at her. "Seergaz called it off! He wants us to report back to him!"

"Garn!" Shafka cursed, and lifted up his sword, swinging it about as he bellowed at the surviving vermin that made up the kidnapped Captain Jhoza's command. "Retreat! Retreat! Back t' th' castle, soldiers!"

An old silver-furred otter named Morim, one of the last of the villagers to make it to the blessed treeline, turned and watched with shock as the vermin band and the few villagers that were caught or surrendered stopped their halt and began making their way back to Wintor. "My pearls, they've given up!" He turned to their rescuers, six of them, dressed in forest-green. One of them, the first archer, a stern-looking female salt-and-pepper-furred hare with a monocle, shook her head as she returned her longbow to the quiver upon her back. "Given up? Nay. Have no illusions, old chap, slavers don't give up quite so bleedin' easy. They'll be needin' more than a few arrows t' make 'em see th' error in their blinkin' ways."

She turned to the villagers gathered about them. "Welcome t' freedom, chaps. I'm Sergeant Merusel Kendelworth Branton, and we're rangers of the Long Patrol. Y' might be safe from the blackguards that enslaved y' poor selves f' now, but won't be f' long. There's a village not far from 'ere- Berwick. Follow us, an' we'll lead you lot there."